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UV-Resistant Micro-Organisms Discovered In the Stratosphere
junglee_iitk writes "Three new species of bacteria, which are not found on earth and highly resistant to ultraviolet radiation, have been discovered in the upper stratosphere by some Indian scientists. These bacteria, which do not match any species on earth, were found in samples collected through a balloon sent up to the stratosphere in April 2005. The payload consisted of a cryosampler containing 16 evacuated and sterilised stainless steel probes. Throughout the flight, the probes remained immersed in the liquid neon to create a 'cryopump effect.' These cylinders after collecting air samples from different heights ranging from 20 to 41 km were parachuted down and safely retrieved, it said." Here's the Indian Space Research Organisation's press release on the discovery. Adds an anonymous reader: "This paper in International Journal of Astrobiology [PDF] speculates how microorganisms reach the stratosphere."
Interesting information to be sure...
But how do these micro organisms interact with Human cells ?
Can they survive down here ?
Are the body snatchers on their way ??!!
Surely, we should welcome our new microscopic overlords before they take
over our minds and......**gurgle**
End of Line.
they're found on earth now!
Was Rimmer right after all?
Lister: Your explanation for anything slightly peculiar is aliens, isn't it? You lose your keys, it's aliens. A picture falls off the wall, it's aliens. That time we used up a whole bog roll in a day, you thought that was aliens as well.
Rimmer: Well we didn't use it all, Lister. Who did?
Lister: Rimmer, ALIENS used our bog roll?
Rimmer: Just cause they're aliens doesn't mean to say they don't have to visit the little boys' room. Only they probably do something weird and alien-esque, like it comes out of the top of their heads or something.
Lister: Well I wouldn't like to be stuck behind one in a cinema.
So if they're resistant to UV, which can kill many nasty bugs that plague humanity, I wonder which of our other defenses (antibiotics, autoclaves, etc.) they can survive.
This is a serious question. I am an English major.
Who knows what we'll find in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Maybe we've been looking for life in the wrong places all alon.
This is completely wrong. They're resistant to UV because the upper atmosphere is constantly bombarded by UV rays. Clorox and UV rays' methods of cell destruction are completely different. In fact, they are probably less resistant to bleach/antibiotics etc than bacteria down here because they've never been exposed to it.
I trust you all know about the TB bacteria, which in recent years has regained prominence, due mainly to the fact that (multi) resistive strains are being encountered in patients worldwide with ever increasing incidence. But, we also know that TB is not so easy to transmit and that it's killed very easily by the rays of the sun. It's susceptible to UV and this keeps a lid on TB epidemics.
Now, imagine if somehow TB could be made UV resistant.
Wet dreams of some mad dictator in his efforts to conquer the world? Or destroy humankind altogether? This could be it.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Of course I haven't RTFA and I certainly don't mind micro-organisms reaching the stratosphere. But how come they don't fall down - that's what I want to know !
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
So we should all arm ourselves with clorox water pistols?
I checked the linked paper, from 2005, and while is presents some interesting arguments, it is not a thorough discussion of the subject.
Too many possibilities of Earth origin are rejected with the phrase "it seems unlikely", and there's no mention of the most obvious method by which the micro-organisms get there: random motion (OK, particle velocities in the atmosphere will not be truly random, but you'd still expect a few outliers with very high velocities.)
So, their conclusions may not necessarily be wrong, but they need to do a few more experiments before making a convincing argument that they're right.
(P.S. yes I am a professional Astrophysicist)
This is interesting. but not wholly surprising. Bacteria exist in basically every part of the world, including areas even a "reasonable" person might find incredible. NASA clean rooms have turned up a lot of exotic, unique bacteria which defy common sense (like bacteria who live solely on aluminum IIRC). So, UV resistant bacteria in the stratosphere is nifty in that they confirmed it exists, but isn't revolutionary.
Douglas Whitaker
Mechanisms for resistance radiation damage are extremely old in life. Half of Earth's history there was insufficient free oxygen to produce the productive ozone layer. Yet bacteria evolved mechanisms to colonize the energy rich top inches of the ocean surface and resist UV damage.
Many of these same chemical pathways were co-opted in aerobic cells. Free oxygen is toxic to many cells and parts of cells. Yet they figured out how to incorporate the toxic mitochondria energy engines. Mitochondria help cells generate an order of magnitude more energy than aerobic cells, setting the stage for later mobile animal life which requires lots of energy.
No, that's not what it means. It means they are resistant to UV. They are probably relatively easy to kill, because they have evolved for such a specialised environment. I bet they don't grow at very well at room or body temperature for example.
...from the results of the Scoop mission. Trying to collect bacteria from outer space and the upper atmosphere is a terrible idea.
I always find it interesting how local events, lore, and legends end up affecting future thoughts and research. I have no doubt that events like the Red Rain in Kerala lead researchers to come up with these ideas and projects.
I'm sure if I had more coffee this morning, I would list a few other examples I have come across in the past.
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" - Doctor Who
What the hell do they eat in the stratosphere? They must also be able to survive with very little water. Maybe they spend time in lower levels of the atmosphere.
Ok, so here's my plot: They, like, scoop immortal UV resistant clone bacteria from the upper reaches of the atmosphere and, get this, it EATS radiation and so if you ...
It has?? When?? Oh.
Ok, so how bout this: So, like, this plane crashes on an island and the survivors run into a giant killer mutant iguana from the Badassic era but Ron Perlman shows up with this HUGE rail gun ...
Without any kind of background in the subject (disclaimer disclaimer) I've begun to wonder if the substrate for the emergence of life on Earth may have been carbon nanotubes or graphene on clays, with various oxidising agents as the energy source. This could apply also to remote moons.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
These bacteria were retrieved at "different heights ranging from 20 km to 41 k".
These altitudes bracket the surface pressures on Mars, and the conditions at 41 km are quite comparable to those
on the Martian surface (full UV flux, lower atmospheric pressure).
Given that material is exchanged between the Earth and Mars, I have to wonder if these might not be Martian bacteria.
There is another article from last year regarding the meteorites found in Antarctica, which were found to be loaded with amino acids. I also remember reading something about actual microbes/bacteria that were found to have entered the atmosphere from space quite recently, but I can't remember the link. It could have been this current story, considering the paper dates from 4 years ago.
I see no reason that this could not be valid. Comets and asteroids have near misses with planets quite regularly and the occasional glancing blow will surely take some of whatever is on the planet out into space. As the paper states, these micro-organisms are viable but don't respond to culturing. Which could mean they were alive but are dormant and don't respond to conditions here on earth.
Being previously undiscovered doesn't really prove anything as the Amazon is full of insects and other life that have yet to be "discovered" by man, but this is not definitively disproving panspermia. IMHO, this is one of the prime reasons for humans to visit Mars, as it is very difficult to get a robot to be able to spot these kinds of organisms, especially if they are not currently alive. The conditions on Mars are not favourable for large organisms, but if there is water ice, then you have the capability of getting H2 and O2 at the least. And as Mars has no magnetic field (to speak of), there would be large amounts of mutating cosmic rays hitting the surface continually for billions of years. It would be odd if nothing came of it.
I've been reading some of Asimovs later scientific essays, and he describes how you can predict with some certainty which planets are likely to have a magnetosphere. Basically, you need a reasonably rapid rotation, and a molten or high temperature metallic core which "sloshes" about as the planet spins. This core acting against the outer layers of the planet causes the magnetic field. The only real reason our planet is special, regarding life, is that we have an exceptionally large moon, too large in fact as conventional wisdom goes, to have been formed by capturing passing debris. We are almost a binary planet system, and that is pretty rare. So the possibility of life forming actually in space (rather than on another planetary body) has to be considered.
If we send men to Mars and they find similar micro-organisms there, then it is possible they came from space rather than evolved natively. Especially if there are no other traces of activity that can be construed as being the result of living organisms.
Interesting stuff, which can never be verified while we sit here exploring from a distance.
...I can't help thinking of the headline like this: "Creatures that Can Breathe Underwater Discovered Underwater."
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
Seriously .. resistancy to UV means they are tough buggers to kill? Clorox is not gonna phase these tiny invaders...
This is completely wrong. They're resistant to UV because the upper atmosphere is constantly bombarded by UV rays. Clorox and UV rays' methods of cell destruction are completely different. In fact, they are probably less resistant to bleach/antibiotics etc than bacteria down here because they've never been exposed to it.
Not necessarily. Clorox is a highly reactive oxidizer. Much like ozone. Which is produced by ultraviolet light, thus producting the ozone layer, which is in the stratosphere. Where the microorganisms under discussion are found.
So if they live in the stratosphere, they're likely to be somewhat resistant to ozone as well, which means they'd likely be resistant to clorox.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Given that material is exchanged between the Earth and Mars, I have to wonder if these might not be Martian bacteria.
Great! That's all we need in these tough economic times: more illegal aliens!
anything living at that atmosphere level, or on mars, has been living there perhaps for a very long time. for such a long time, you couldn't say whether it was native to mars, or native to the upper atmosphere of earth
for such a long time in fact, that these bacteria might not even be native to this solar system, or even this part of the galaxy
for such a long time in fact, you could even speculate that the initial identification of these critters as being some exotic mutation of life on earth, is in actuality the reverse: life in earth, us, we are an exotic mutation of THEM
you can begin to talk about the idea that these indian scientists have the first inklings of panspermia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panspermia
tha the seeds of life, these critters, are absolutely everywhere in the galaxy
and its not just earth they could have descended upon, many billions of years ago
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Random motion might be a method if it wasn't for the tropopause - which they mention. What they do not mention is the other more likely cause - the amount of stuff humans throw up into the atmosphere, as all of their data comes from after the start of the Space Age.
Space craft, supersonic aircraft and weather balloons all regularly go into the stratosphere and could carry particles. 10 years of bacterial evolution would be enough to develop some UV resistance (if we work from the bacteria being deposited there in the late 60's and then sampled in 1978).
resistance to uv light is expensive. meaning the cell has to expend all of this additional energy just surviving in high uv. remove the uv, and now uv resistance is a handicap. non-uv resistant bacteria can grow faster and reproduce faster because they aren't wasting their energy. uv resistance bacteria, on the surface of the earth, would simply be outcompeted at any food source, and die off
we see that with antibiotic resistance too. currently farmers pump livestock with antibiotics (it makes for bigger chickens, pigs, etc.) such that all of the microorganisms in the area of these farms become resistant to antibiotics
but this doesn't mean antibiotic bacteria will storm the planet. simply because antibiotic resistance is expensive. so if you remove antibiotics from these farms, bacteria from outside the farm, that aren't wasting their energy resisting antibiotics that aren't there anymore, simply grow faster and outcompete the resistant bacteria, and antibiotic resistant bacteria die off
its still dangerous though to use antibiotics in livestock, because antibiotic resistance normally would be something that bacteria would have to spend a lot of time and generations to evolve. but if you are actively breeding antibiotic resistant bacteria at various sites all over your country, you are seeding the environment with bacteria ready at a moments notice to jump in and take over from nonresistant bacteria. so someone using antibiotics is at sudden risk of reinfection by resistant bacteria, rather than only at risk of reinfection over many years time of antibiotic use, spent breeding resistance in their own bodies. which doesn't really happen, since normal antibiotic use implies a few weeks use
so antibiotic use meant for a few weeks time here and there will not breed armies of antibiotic resistant bacteria. but prolonged, extended use of antibiotics, for whatever reason, will seed the environment with resistant bacteria ready to render your antibiotic use completely ineffective
so we need to stop using antibiotics in livestock. but of course this meets resistance from the agriculture lobby, because now you are getting smaller chickens and pigs for the same cost of raising them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. panspermia, which these uv bacteria represent, means where life started isn't the issue, nor is how life started the issue. that discovering, for example, life on mars simply is no big deal, because life is simply EVERYWHERE. and that, in certain conditions ideal for life, such as you identify, the concern is not so much how life can start independently, but the new conception is that these are simply places that tiny intergalactic travelers can settle down in, colonize, and then give rise to more complex life forms, like us
2. ewoks on endor. enough said
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You know, thinking about it, since photosynthesis relies on CO2 as a key component to synthesize carbohydrates, possibly they've found a counter for global warming! I'm sure none of the existing AGW climate models include a atmospheric, CO2-fixing bacteria factor.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
sorry
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."